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Simone Gillot (or Ida Simone Delaruelle or Simone Levasseur, born on April 5, 1912 in Sigy-en-Bray and died on March 25, 2008 in Saint-Denis ) is a communist activist, trade unionist and resistance fighter. She became a nurse and was a pioneer in painless childbirth.

Childhood and youth
Ida Simone Delaruelle was declared born of unknown parents on April 5, 1912 in Sigy-en-Bray. She was recognized one month later, on May 2, 1912, by her mother Léa Levasseur (1888-1966), a dressmaker by profession. Simone Levasseur remained in foster care for ten and a half years in Haussez and was then taken in by an uncle and an aunt for four years.

After obtaining her primary school certificate, she prepared for the elementary school diploma, but two months before the exam, her mother took her from the care of her uncle and aunt and put her to work. She was then successively a nanny and a clerk. When she arrived in the Paris region at the age of seventeen, she was hired in 1929 at the telegraph and telephone lines factory in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine as a specialized winding worker and then on the Bliss presses ..

On July 8, 1929 she married André Flambart. They had a son Jean, born on December 24, 1929, and then divorced ..

In early 1934, Simone Gillot was hired by Hispano-Suiza in Bois-Colombes as a worker specializing in lathes. After an internship, she passed the autogenous welding exam.

Simone Gillot took part in the antifascistes demonstrations of February 12, 1934, and the following year was elected a union delegate for the General Confederation of Labor (CGT). She took an active part in the June 1936 strike at the Hispano factory and joined the Communist Party.

During the Spanish Civil War, in 1937, she was given responsibility for 26 children and four young mothers who had taken refuge in France, sponsored and cared for by Hispano workers. This experience enabled her to learn Spanish ..

On November 30, 1938, she was punished for going on strike, and in June 1940 she left her home in Bezons to go to Soues, near Tarbes, with the Hispano workers who had been requisitioned to manufacture war material. But two and a half months later, Hispano-Suiza management ordered them to return to Bois-Colombes.

The Resistance
In September 1940, Simone Gillot organized, with the women of Bezons, Argenteuil, Houilles and Sannois, solidarity with prisoners of war and political prisoners ..

From December 1940, Danielle Casanova organized demonstrations for the liberation of prisoners of war. In Gennevilliers, Simone Gillot led many wives to participate.

She helped in the clandestine reconstitution of the "Secours populaire français" and became its secretary for the western region of Paris. After a police search of her home, she had to go into hiding and was separated from her ten-year-old son, whom she was reunited with four years later at the Liberation. She then became the director of the Secours Populaire in the East Paris region and joined the National Front in May 1941. From 1943 until the liberation of Paris, she liaised with the various members of the National Council of the Resistance and General de Gaulle's delegates. She participated in the fighting for the liberation of Paris in August 1944.

In August 1944, she became the private secretary of Auguste Gillot (1905-1998), the mayor of Saint-Denis, whom she had met when she set up the "secours populaire". He divorced her on April 13, 1945, and they got married in Ivry-sur-Seine on August 30. They have two daughters, Claudie, born October 13, 1945, and Pierrette, born November 14, 1946,.

The post-war period
Elected president of the Union of French Women of Saint-Denis (UFF), she was a member of the National Council of the association from 1945 to 1952.

She was a delegate to the 10th congress of the Communist Party in Paris in 1945 and to the 12th congress in Strasbourg in 1947, was a member of the regional office of Paris-Nord in 1945 and secretary of the section of the Pleyel district of Saint-Denis in 1948.

Simone Gillot multiplied her unpaid activities but, as she had to contribute to the family income, she worked as a medical secretary for the infant consultation centers. Following this experience, she decided to study nursing and obtained her state diploma around 1950,.

Painless childbirth
Dr. Fernand Lamaze, head of the maternity ward of the Bluets in Paris, promotes a new method of childbirth of Soviet origin. He asked Auguste Gillot to help him create a painless childbirth service at the Danielle Casanova Hospital in Saint Denis. Simone Gillot became a trainee at the "Polyclinic des Bluets" in order to study the theory and practice of painless childbirth or psychoprophylactic method. She was appointed coordinator of painless childbirth at the Danielle Casanova Hospital. With a group of medical and paramedical staff, she developed the method and organized introductory courses for all staff,.

When a new maternity hospital was opened in Saint Denis in January 1963, Simone Gillot was appointed head supervisor.

Auguste and Simone Gillot are invited several times to the URSS. Simone Gillot takes Russian classes at the CGT trade union center, which allows her to read, in the original version, Pavlov's work on conditioned reflexes, which are important in the psychoprophylactic method of painless childbirth. She also followed a course at the Institute of Obstetrics in Moscow.

Retirement
Simone Gillot retired in 1972. She stayed in touch with the medical world and continued to participate regularly in professional conferences.

Simone and Auguste Gillot devoted themselves to passing on the memory of the Second World War. Together, they recounted their lives as activists in the book Un couple dans la Résistance, published by Éditions sociales in 1975 and republished in 1976. They gave lectures and debates on the Resistance, the Occupation and the Liberation. They lead the local committee of the National Association of Veterans of the Resistance (ANACR). They continue to be active in the Secours populaire français and support the Mouvement de la Paix.

She died in 2008 in Saint-Denis at the age of 95. She is buried next to her husband in the cemetery of Saint-Denis.

The archives of Simone Gillot are kept by the City of Saint-Denis.

Distinctions
She received numerous decorations, including the Resistance Medal, the Volunteer Combatant Cross and, in 1983, she was named Knight of the Legion of Honor.

In 2012, at the request of the association Femmes solidaires, the name of Simone Gillot was given, to the left wing of the Maternité Delafontaine.

Publications

 * Un couple dans la Résistance, Éditions sociales, 1987 ISBN 9782209051243
 * A chacun son chemin, 1990